After two years with our old site we finally decided it was time to apply a lot of what we’ve learned over the years into a re-launch.

So, what does this actually mean?  A new site usually comes with something different, and in this case we didn’t want to disappoint. Read more

Interconnect IT’s news orientated WordPress technology has been implemented in the relaunched Telecoms.com site.

Telecoms.com is considered to be the telecoms industry’s leading news, opinion and analysis website. It is produced by the Telecoms & Media group within Informa plc – a major operator in the information business with over 8000 staff in over 40 countries. Read more

Another site based on an off-the-shelf theme with a surprising amount of customisation going into it, as well as a lot of work with the client on the content, design tweaks, and so on.  Using off-the-shelf themes has the benefit of reducing build costs by up to £2k in many cases – this is one example where the client, being a small company, did not necessarily wish to pay for a custom theme while still having some very specific requirements.  The theme fitted their needs very well, and the custom ideas were dropped. Read more

David Coveney of WordPress Developers Interconnect IT is a big fan of motorsport and a member of Liverpool Motor Club.  Although not directly involved in the website, he helps out where possible.  Previously we supplied a blog based theme and this had proven to be a huge success for the website.  Lately, however, more was wanted – the ability to target visitors with a home page along with a fresher, more businesslike appearance. Read more

Danbar Drilling is a WordPress 2.7 based site.  The theme is 100% custom in-house design & build, and utilises several Interconnect IT only custom plugins, including automatic theme sensitive image resizing, short titles and excerpts, and more.  Design by David Coveney, code by James R Whitehead and Mike Little.  The site is built to industry standards and with accessibility in mind.

Danbar Drilling are Geothermal Drilling Specialists based in Lancashire – they needed a theme built which emphasised their professionalism and high quality approach to their work.

One of our clients is the Georgia Energy Efficiency Programme with their website at http://energocredit.ge – and nice people they are too. Now, Georgia, in case you don’t know, is a small former USSR state between Turkey and Russia. Relations between Georgia and Russia have never been brilliant, and there’s a lot of complex politics going on which I won’t go into here.

Well, with the Olympics diverting the world’s attention, Russia stepped up hostilities. The attacks on the city of Gori aren’t really that far from where our clients are in the capital, Tbilisi. And it’s weird. We’ve worried about clients going bust (happened twice already in the company’s history) and we’ve worried about clients that are undergoing upheavals. But we’ve never worried about them being in danger of military actions. And that’s an altogether different feeling.

So here at Interconnect IT we’re wishing all the best to our Georgian friends, and following the blog of their British team leader Helene Ryding. It’s an interesting insight into what it is to be in a country that’s under attack.

One thing we talk a lot about is how important it is, for costs, to stick to problems which have already been solved. Get fancy and do something new, and your costs have rocketed away.

A developer has just done a nice little piece on spellchecking. In 1984 it was ferociously hard. In fact, if you wanted a decent spellchecker in your custom application you had to pay dearly for the priviledge. Today it can be accomplished in a few lines of code. Read more

It’s hard to measure the cost of code.  Simple stuff can be ferociously time-consuming to develop, and bad coders often produce reams of poorly structured code.

But let’s assume you’re dealing with a typical, decent developer who doesn’t take the long route, or dangerous shortcuts. Read more

Bit of an unusual post this one, but when we uncover kit that my girlfriend says “haven’t you chucked out that museum piece yet?” I tend to call up the Museum of Computing in Swindon.  Consequently they’ve got a few random oddities from my IT past including an old Sinclair QL and the very rare QL Monitor that came with it, as well as the tiny and unpopular Rex card sized organiser.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to raise awareness of their need for a new home by the end of July.  If you, or anyone you know, has the capability to offer some real and useful help then they’d love to hear from you.  IT industry firms are probably the best candidates.

Visit the Museum of Computing’s website…